The Last Child of Gallifrey
by venomfang77
Summary: Eromai is secretly a time lady. A survivor of the Time War who was raised by humans. Only, she doesn't know that. One day, she discovers a fantastic machine called the TARDIS which tells her about her past, and together they set off on an adventure with Eromai's Rutan companion.
1. Slimy, Green, Jellyfish Thing

**An Extremely Brief Guide to Pronunciation:**

Éromai- ARROW-may

Lerox- LAIR-ox

Ever so carefully, she glanced up and down the hallway. Feeling confident that no one had seen her, the girl pressed on the access panel to open the door to the Med Center, and half-walked half-jogged over to one of the medical berths that stood against the back wall. She looked round the room one more time before gently placing the cloth-wrapped bundle in her arms onto the berth.

She unwrapped the thin, synthetic-fiber cloth, revealing what at first glance appeared to be nothing more than a green gelatinous blob. But if the object was studied more carefully, it became obvious that the "blob" was more like a jellyfish of some sort. The thing had long, cold, slimy, green tentacles attached to a cold, slimy, green, spherical head which didn't appear to have anything in the manner of facial features.

The girl was picking the thing up to examine it more closely when the loud, annoying, and painfully familiar sound of marching soldiers hit her ears. Then the racket abruptly ended, and was replaced by low muttering noises. Suddenly, the door to the medical wing was abruptly flung open and four, hilariously short, troll-like people in blue armor and carrying guns burst in. The lot of them stormed up to the medical berth. Thankfully, the girl had thrown the cloth back over the jellyfish creature before they got close enough to see it.

"This room has been saturated with the stench of the Rutan scum!" barked one of the troll-people, known to the majority of the universe as Sontarans. They were a regular sight on this fueling depot, though the girl never understood why they were continually allowed to wander about the many hallways and corridors to begin with. Who was it that kept letting them aboard?

The lead Sontaran removed his helmet and glared at the girl in a way he must have considered threatening, but in actuality, was rather humorous. "Reveal the location of the enemy or face interrogation, female!"

Most people would have be a bit flustered in this situation, but the girl had grown up around Sontarans, and had a bit of a big sister relationship with the particular group of them that paid regular visits to this region of space.

"Lerox, you know my name." she sighed. The girl took a step backward to further block the green jellyfish-creature from the Sontarans' view.

The lead Sontaran, now identified as Lerox, let out a low growl and responded "Reveal the location of the enemy or face interrogation, Éromai!"

"Thank you," said Éromai. "And I believe this is the creature you're looking for." She lifted up the cloth so they could see the green jellyfish thing.

Immediately, all four Sontarans advanced toward the medical berth as if to attack the poor creature, but Éromai jumped up and shouted "And just what do you think you're doing?"

"That Rutan beast is an enemy of the Sontaran Empire, and I intend to eliminate it!" declared Lerox.

Éromai hopped onto the medical berth and placed the jellyfish-thing on her lap. "So, this is a Rutan. I wonder how it ended up here."

"I must insist that you hand it over immediately." Said Lerox, who was having trouble staying calm.

"Acknowledged, and ignored." said Éromai, mimicking/mocking the Sontarans' speech pattern. "This Rutan is defenseless; it is no threat to you or your people. The pitiful thing hasn't moved since I found it."

Lerox was fuming now, and was opening his mouth to say something when the Rutan lifted and dropped its tentacles limply. Éromai and the Sontarans stared at the Rutan creature as it began to glow. It wasn't a very bright sort of glow, more like a firefly, a kind of weak bioluminescence.

"I AM NOT DEFENSELESS!" proclaimed a harsh, grating voice. It took a second for Éromai to realize it was Rutan that was speaking. "I WAS IN A COMATOSE STATE TO CONSERVE ENERGY. MY BODILY SYSTEMS WERE SLOWED AND ONLY RUDIMENTARY SENSES FUNCTIONED."

"Silence Rutan! And prepare for execution." ordered Lerox as he waved a three-fingered fist in the air.

Éromai silenced him with a steely glare and turned her attention back to the Rutan. "Why are you here?" she asked.

"I WAS SCOUTING THIS AREA OF SPACE TO MEASURE ITS SIGNIFIGANCE IN A WAR SCENARIO, WHEN MY SPACECRAFT WAS INTERCEPTED AND I WAS CAPTURED BY HUMANS. THEY IMPRISONED ME WITHIN THEIR SHIP. THE HUMANS DOCKED AT THIS ENERGY STORAGE FACILITY, AND I WAS TAKEN BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT PATROL. THEIR INCOMPETENCE ALLOWED ME TO ESCAPE. I SENT A SIGNAL TO RUTA III USING THIS FACILITY'S PRIMITIVE TECHNOLOGY; THEN SLOWED MY BODILY FUNCTIONS TO CONSERVE ENERGY WHILE I WAITED FOR A RESPONSE. "

Éromai winced the entire time the Rutan was speaking, its loud and slightly robotic voice was rather difficult to listen to. Its claim did make sense. Most Rutan scouts didn't patrol areas this far from their home planet Ruta III, but every now and again one would show up. It was much more surprising that humans had attacked a Rutan ship. Even more so that the Rutan had been kept alive.

"The humans must have been smugglers. Capturing and transporting any intelligent life form against its will is illegal for most civilians under the Shadow Proclamation. If it's any consolation, those humans are probably in jail right about now." Éromai calmly told the Rutan.

"I AM A RUTAN! I DO NOT REQUIRE ANY FORM OF CONSOLATION! ONLY A LESSER ORGANISM WOULD ACCEPT SUCH COMFORTING!" the Rutan yelled.

"I don't like your tone, mister! Stop shouting before someone loses their hearing!" ordered a somewhat irritated Éromai. "Honestly, you're worse than Sontarans doing their stupid war chant!" Considering the circumstances, she probably shouldn't have voiced this analogy.

"DO NOT COMPARE MY PEOPLE WITH THAT BARBARIC RACE!" screeched the Rutan in an even more grating voice as it flailed around so much that Éromai also dropped it onto the floor.

"Enough! Both of you shall be executed for continued resistance!" announced Lerox as he lifted up his gun and lined up a shot.

"Lerox don't you dare fire!" shouted Éromai. "This is the ship's Med Center, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't start shooting in a room full of important medicines and potentially flammable chemicals!"

"That is of no consequence to us!" responded Lerox, holding his weapon off to the side for a moment.

"Fine then, if that doesn't matter, you can kill the Rutan and me. You'll be under arrest for murder. Do you know what that means?" said Éromai with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

The four Sontarans shook their heads. Or rather, they shook their heads, shoulders, and torso, since Sontarans don't have necks.

"You'll either be imprisoned for life. That means no more battles or warfare for any of you. Just sitting in a cell until you die of age." Lerox quickly reconsidered.

With an annoyed grunt he said "You win this time, female." Apparently he'd forgotten her name again. With that, the four Sontarans stomped out of the Med Center, and everything was quiet and peaceful once more.

"SONTARANS CANNOT RESIST BATTLE. IT IS THEIR GREATEST STRENGTH AND THEIR GREATEST FLAW." The Rutan's voice broke the silence, making Éromai jump. The creature paused for a moment before continuing. "WHY DID YOU NOT SURRENDER ME TO THEM?" he asked.

"Because I still have questions. For starters, I carried you half the length of this fueling station to get here, and yet you didn't come out of your coma until the Sontarans showed up. Why?"

"I RESUMED MY FUNCTIONS WHEN THE SONTARANS WERE TOLD THAT I WAS INCAPABLE OF SELF DEFENSE. I HAD TO BE PERCIEVED AS A THREAT."

"But you're a Rutan, the enemy of the Sontaran race, why wouldn't perceive you as a threat?"

The Rutan shifted slightly in Éromai's arms. "YOU WERE CORRECT IN YOUR PREVIOUS ASSUMPTION THAT I AM DEFENSELESS. I AM EXTREMELY LOW ON ENERGY. FENDING OFF THE SONTARANS WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE IN THIS WEAKENED STATE."

"Oh, well what kind of energy do Rutans need?" she asked with a quizzical expression.

"YOU WISH TO AID ME A SECOND TIME? EXPLAIN." The Rutan asked and/or demanded.

"I still have loads of questions to ask, and I can't get answers if you're dead. So what do you need?" said Éromai with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

The Rutan was silent for a moment, before responding. "I RECQUIRE AN ELECTRIC CHARGE AND AMINO ACIDS."

This confused Éromai for just a second before she pushed it to the back of her mind and set about her task. She picked the Rutan up and placed it on top of the cloth she had carried it in earlier. "I'll be right back." She told the Rutan before leaving the Med Center.


	2. The Name of the Rutan

**Another Brief Guide to Pronunciation:**

Saumya : SO-mia

Limainen: lee-MINE-en (Warning, this word is from the Rutan language. Humans seem to have a difficult time pronouncing anything in Rutan, so don't get upset if you can't say it quite right or forget what the pronunciation is. That's why there is a guide here. If all else fails, get an English to Rutan dictionary. It should be of some use.)

Éromai's back hugged the wall as she glanced around the hallway, once again making sure she was alone. This wasn't really necessary, if anyone had seen her it probably wouldn't have occurred to them that she was stashing a Rutan in their Med Center. After a moment, she raced down the dull blue hallway; her auburn hair flying in the imaginary wind. Approximately forty-five seconds of running later, she skidded to a stop in front of a pair of glass doors. Éromai pressed down on an access panel beside them, and doors retracted back into the wall leaving space for her to walk through into a small room.

The interior of the room was a stark, agonizingly bright white which greatly contrasted the energy saving lower lighting of the hall. In the center of the room was a gray platform. It didn't look at all special, just a thin circle about the size of an ancient device that was once known as a tire. This platform was a useful contraption called a "transmat". Transmats can teleport people and supplies over long distances in a few hundredths of a second. They are commonly used on large stationary spacecraft, such as the fueling station that Éromai was on, to help people move from one end of the station to another. This system greatly reduced hallway traffic and the infuriating need to greet every person you passed by on the way to work.

Not wasting any time, Éromai leaped onto the transmat. "Transport to Section Omicron!" she commanded with an excited flair. Instantly, she was beamed to a transmat platform in the previously mentioned area.

She jumped off and exited the white room. Just outside was a huge hangar bay, with spaceships of all kinds docked inside it. About a million different species of people milled around in the space as they went about their business of spacecraft repair and refueling. On the far wall of the hangar was an atrociously cluttered work area dubbed the "Trash Pit" where all manner of spare parts, broken gears, fuel packs, tools, and chunks of scrap metal tended to accumulate. Some technicians, or Techs, as they were often called, were rooting through the mess in search of whatever supplies they needed. They were distinguished by their black and gray uniforms, which they were required to wear whenever they were on duty.

Éromai slipped around a few of the Techs and made her way through the Pit, looking for something that could generate an electric charge. As she was searching, she whipped around suddenly and smacked right into someone. She jumped back and took a minute to regain her focus. When she looked up again she recognized the one she bumped into as being her friend Saumya, one of the Repair Techs.

"Whoops, careful where you're going." Said Saumya with a slight chuckle, her dark hair falling in front of her eyes before she pushed it back behind her ear.

Éromai and Saumya had a bit of an odd friendship, considering that Saumya was seventeen, a whole four years older than Éromai. In fact, the two of them had more of a big sister – to little sister relationship.

"Sorry, I didn't see you." Éromai apologized with a goofy smile.

"It's fine. Hey, could you toss me that pack of wires?" asked Saumya as she pointed to some copper wire that had been rolled up and tied into a bundle before being left amongst some chunks of piping. Éromai bent over and scooped up the bundle. She quickly pocketed a few loose strands of wire before handing over the rest.

"What were you looking for?" asked Saumya as she tucked the wires under her arm and fiddled with the sleeves of her uniform.

" Batteries, charging equipment, anything I can start an electric charge with." Éromai replied, with a renewed sense of urgency.

Saumya curiously tipped her head to the side. "What for?" she asked, with a slight hint of worry.

Éromai shifted uncomfortably. "Oh, just a quick science experiment." She said.

Saumya thought for a moment, before replying, "I saw some battery packs over there," she pointed to an area at the far end of the trash pit, "You can take one." Éromai started walking when Saumya halted her. "But please, don't blow anything up this time." She joked before returning to her duties elsewhere.

Éromai chuckled to herself as nostalgic memories of her previous scientific exploits were brought to mind. Over the years, she had garnered a fine reputation for setting things on fire, causing explosions, "accidently" releasing wild animals onboard the fueling station, and creating highly corrosive acids that left gaping holes in the floor if dropped. She truly adored science.

However, she quickly remembered her mission, and carefully picked her way through the trash pit to find the battery packs. There were three of them, left next to some spare coolant containers. (Which by the way is a very bad idea because coolant fluid has conductive properties, so if the coolant was accidentally spilled on a battery pack the electric charge would carry through the fluid. Then, if some idiot was to walk by and pick up the battery pack covered in coolant, he or she would be electrocuted and die a quick yet excruciatingly painful death. Just thought you should know.) Éromai selected a battery pack, and heaved the surprisingly heavy metal box back to the white room.

Fifteen minutes of slow walking and a transmat later Éromai was back in the Med Center. With a huff she set the battery pack down on the medical berth. Then she whisked away the cloth that was covering the Rutan.

" 'Ello Rutan! Did ya miss me?" she asked jokingly while preparing the battery pack. The Rutan didn't quite get the joke.

"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. HOW DOES ONE MISS SOMETHING IF NOT FIRING AT SOMETHING?"

"You mean shooting at someone? That's not what I meant."

"BUT IT IS WHAT YOU SAID." The Rutan angrily pointed out.

Éromai groaned loudly. "When someone asks if you missed them, they are asking if you felt bad because they were away for a time."

"WHAT TERM IS USED WHEN ONE FIRES A WEAPON BUT THE BLAST DOES NOT CONTACT THE OPPONENT?"

"A miss." Éromai replied as she inserted copper wires into the positive and negative slots on the battery.

"THE TERM HAS TWO MEANINGS?" asked the very confused alien.

"That's correct." Said Éromai as she carefully coiled the ends of the two wires together to generate a charge.

"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. WOULDN'T THIS CAUSE CONFUSION AMONGST THE SPEAKERS OF THIS LANGUAGE?"

"It does occasionally. Here, I rigged this stuff up to create an electric charge. Can you fuel up on it?" Éromai asked, sliding the modified battery pack closer to the Rutan.

The Rutan reached out a slimy green tentacle and wrapped it around the two conjoined wires. Electricity crackled around the Rutan as he started to glow a brighter, almost yellow, shade of green. His tentacles moved with less lethargy, and bright blue veins appeared all over them. After a minute, sparks flew up from the two wires and the Rutan released his grip.

"THIS ENERGY WILL SUFFICE. I STILL REQUIRE AMINO ACIDS TO REPAIR MY CELLS." Stated the Rutan.

"Right, amino acids. Let's see…" Éromai turned around and walked over to the opposite side of the room where the medical supplies were kept. Against the wall, in a climate-controlled capsule about the size of fridge, was where replacement bio-fluids were kept. Éromai looked through the capsule, searching for an amino acid IV, though she didn't think that there'd be one in there. A few minutes of fruitless searching proved her correct and she grabbed out an IV of proteins instead and placed it on the medical berth next to the Rutan. Then she got an eye dropper, an empty pill bottle, and a jar of concentrated destruam acidum off a hospital cart.

"WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THESE ITEMS?" asked the Rutan.

"I don't have any raw amino acids but with this DA stuff here," explained Éromai, holding up the bottle of destruam acidum, "I can break complex proteins down into simple amino acids." She poured the contents of the IV into the pill bottle, and used the eye dropper to transfer a small amount of the DA to the bottle as well. Then she put the lid back on the bottle, sealed it up tight, and gave the whole bottle a good shake. When the contents had been thoroughly distressed she placed the bottle back on the medical berth

"Now we just wait a minute." Continued Éromai, before she started counting to thirty in her head. When she finished she removed the lid from the bottle and set the odd gray mixture down close to the Rutan.

"And bam! A nice cold bottle of amino acids for supper." Éromai announced. "Though I'm not sure how you'll be able to drink it…"

"MY SPECIES DOES NOT "DRINK" AS YOURS DOES. WE ABSORB FLUID MATTER THROUGH ENDOCYTOSIS. OBSERVE."

The Rutan dipped the end of a tentacle into the gray fluid. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then the mixture started bubbling rapidly, making little popping noises. With a strange gurgle the bubbly mixture quickly drained away, presumably into the Rutan's cells.

"Interesting." Said Éromai, having watched the process with an innate fascination. The Rutan tilted himself slightly, as if he was looking up at her.

"THOUGH YOUR LANGUAGE IS STRANGE TO ME, YOU HAVE SHOWN KNOWLEDGE OF CHEMISTRY. YOUR SPECIES MUST BE MORE INTELLIGENT THAN MY KIND PREDICTED." The Rutan admitted.

"Thank you." Éromai Replied. "It's not often that I get an appreciative audience for my experiments." After that, the two of them sat quietly for a short time. Both of them thinking.

"I just thought of something." Said Éromai, breaking the silence.

"WHAT IS IT THAT YOU THOUGHT OF?"

"I realized that you haven't told me your name, and if we're going to be friends from here on out, then I can't just call you Rutan can I?"

The Rutan was a bit taken aback by this, if Rutans could be taken aback.

"WILL NOT BE "FRIENDS" AS YOU SAY." He said before taking a brief pause. "AND THE MAJORITY OF RUTAN SCOUTS HAVE NO PERSONAL DESIGNATION."

"So if you don't have a name, is there one you'd like to have?" Éromai questioned. Again, the Rutan had to think about it for a bit.

"AN ODD INQUIRY. HOWEVER, YES. THERE IS A WORD IN THE RUTAN LANGUAGE THAT I WOULD ACCEPT AS A NAME."

"Well what is it?" Éromai continued to press, hoping to get answer sometime within the next hour.

"LIMAINEN. IT HAS THE SAME MEANING AS YOUR WORD SCOUT." Said the Rutan. It was rather unimaginative of him to want to be called scout. Though it was to be expected of a Rutan.

Éromai smiled warmly and shook one of the Rutan's tentacles as if it were a hand. "Hello Limainen, my name's Éromai, and it's so nice to meet you properly."


	3. Patterns

**An Absurdly Brief Guide to Pronunciation:**

Xiwang: ZHEE-wong

At precisely 5:55 pm, a resounding sound similar to a school bell rang throughout the fueling station. The noise startled Éromai to her feet.

"That's the end of shift bell!"Éromai exclaimed.

"WHAT DOES THIS OBNOXIOUS SOUND SIGNIFY?" asked Limainen.

"Well, all the employees here work during certain shifts-"

"SHIFTS?"

"Yes, a shift is just a specified area of time when someone or something performs his, her, or its assigned task."

"THIS WORD, SHIFT, IT HAS TWO MEANINGS AS WELL?"

Éromai sighed dramatically. "Correct. Now as I was saying, when that bell goes off at the end of my shift, I have to go back to my family's section. And I if I don't get there within ten minutes then I'll have to sit through a long conversation with my parents about getting home on time, and curfews, and following instructions, and all that crud."

Éromai scooped up Limainen in one arm and used the other to wrap his cloth back around him.

"I'll take you back to my room. You'll have to stay there for a short time while my family's around." She carried him out of the Med Center and into the hallway. "I'll have to tell them about you later."

For a few minutes the pair of them was silent again as Éromai continued on to the white room for the second the time that day.

"WHAT IS YOUR ASSIGNED TASK?" Limainen asked out of nowhere in his usual grating voice. Damn, listening that was going to take some getting used to.

"I'm one of the communication Techs in the hangar bay. Basically, when ships come here for refueling, I send a message to their pilots telling them which area to land at." Said Éromai. "It's a bit boring, but the pay is decent."

"WHAT IS PAY?" asked Limainen, wriggling his slimy tentacles around inside the cloth.

"It's when you give someone something in exchange for completing a task, or it can be the thing that was given. And before you ask, yes, it has two meanings as well. Explained Éromai.

They arrived at the white room a few seconds later. Éromai had just placed her hand on the access panel when Limainen spoke again.

"WHY DID YOU LEAVE YOUR POST?" he asked in a mocking sort of way. Éromai whipped her head around to face him.

"What's that supposed to mean?"She responded flippantly.

"YOU SAID THAT YOU WERE PERMITTED TO LEAVE YOUR ASSIGNED TASK WHEN THE END OF SHIFT BELL SOUNDED. WHY WERE YOU NOT WORKING AT YOUR TASK BEFORE THE SOUND CAME?" Limainen pressed.

"Because I was dismissed early." Said Éromai as she pressed down on the access panel and walked into the room. Apparently, feeling no need to fully explain. "I'm going to use a transmat to get to the section, so stay still or you'll be fried." She instructed in a slightly bossy tone as she stood up on the grey platform, still carrying Limainen. "Transport to Section Zeta." She told the transmat machine before the two of them dematerialized, and subsequently rematerialized in Section Zeta's white room.

"This section is packed during a shift change. You'll have act inconspicuous." Éromai whispered to Limainen as she stepped over to the pair of doors at one end of the room.

"HOW SHALL I ACCOMPLISH THIS?" he asked.

"Just keep acting like an ordinary piece of cloth until we get to my room. I'll tell you when." Éromai said jokingly before she pressed an access panel on the wall, opening the doors. Limainen shifted around a little in his cloth before going completely limp.

Éromai stepped out into the hall that ran through Zeta like a highway, with people of all sizes, shapes, and species moving through it. Almost as soon as she had passed the doors someone slammed into her shoulder, causing her to stumble forward and almost drop the cloth holding Limainen. As soon as she regained her balance she whipped around to see who did it.

It was a hulking green armored creature that Éromai identified from xenobiology lessons as an ice warrior. "Well, excuse you!" she shouted after him. The ice warrior turned around to glare at her before sneering loudly as he continued lumbering on his way. "Rude." Said Éromai as she adjusted her grip on Limainen's cloth, just to be sure that he wasn't falling out.

When she looked up again the warrior had left so Éromai began to pick her way through the Zeta Section, skirting around groups of humans and sensorites who had just gotten off work. Éromai's home was only a short walk away from the white room, thank goodness, and she was at her front door after about three minutes.

All the employees who lived on the fueling station had their living quarters in either Section Zeta or Section Kappa. There were about fifty families living in Section Zeta at any one time, considerably more than there had been when Éromai first moved in as a child.

She pressed her hand down on the access panel, which unlocked and opened the narrow, blue door. The narrow blue door that was set into a blue wall, in a blue ship. For the umpteenth time Éromai wondered why everything in the halls was the same shade of blue, then banished the thought from her mind as she stepped through the door and closed it behind her. Éromai shifted her weight onto one foot and glanced around the entrance to her home.

It was a nice place, a bit small, but it had a comfortable atmosphere. And it wasn't blue. Audrey, Éromai's foster mother, banned the color blue from their living quarters the day the family had moved in. That was probably for the best anyway; seeing blue all day tends to make people groggy.

"Arrow!" exclaimed a small voice. Its owner, Éromai's little brother Evan, came racing through the front room a second later. As a baby, Evan had a difficult time pronouncing Éromai's name, when he tried to say it, he sounded like he was saying arrow. He was four years old now, and spoke fine, but out of habit he still called her arrow.

"Hey, little brother!" Éromai called out in greeting; shifting Limainen's cloth around to one arm and ruffling Evan's messy blond hair with the other. Fully aware of how this irritated him.

"What's that?" Evan asked, swatting her hand away. At first Éromai didn't understand what he meant until she was struck by the obvious and realized he was talking about the odd bundle of cloth in her arm.

"None of your business." Responded Éromai, lifting the bundled-up cloth out of his reach. Evan wasn't satisfied with this answer, and was jumping up as if to grab the cloth away from his sister when their father walked in from another room. Evan stopped immediately and reverted back to perfect-little-angel mode.

"Hi, Jeff." Said Éromai. As a general rule, she didn't refer to her foster parents as mom and dad. She tried that in the first few days after her adoption, but it just fell wrong. She didn't really know why, but she just didn't like it. Jeff and Audrey understood, and were okay with her calling them by their first names.

"Hey, Éromai." Said Jeff as he walked around a table and over to the two children. "Audrey has to work late tonight so she won't be back for a few more hours. And, before you get too comfortable, Xiwang asked if you could see her, said she needed help with something." He told Éromai.

"Okay, I'll go in just a minute." She responded, before walking past him, around the front room table, and down a very short hall to her bedroom. Éromai shut and locked the door behind her, just to make sure Evan didn't go in her room.

"We're here, you can come out now." Éromai said to Limainen as she sat down on the edge of her bed and laid the bundle down on top of the covers. One of the Rutan's slimy tentacles slipped out from the under the cloth, twisting around it to get a grip before shoving it away. Limainen, now free from the restriction, wriggled his tentacles in relief and glowed a bright chlorophyll shade of green. And then, much to Éromai's surprise, he slowly levitated off the bed, until only the tips of his long tentacles were touching it.

"DOES YOUR FACIAL EXPRESSION INDICATE SURPRISE?" asked Limainen, leading Éromai to realize that she had been gawking.

"Yes, I didn't expect you to start floating." Said Éromai before pushing herself off the bed. "Anyway, I have to go to talk to a friend for a bit. I'll be back as quick as I can. There are some books over there on the shelf if you get bored. But remember, you still have to be quiet and avoid drawing attention to yourself." Limainen continued to float silently. "Please indicate your understanding." Said Éromai. Limainen tilted his gelatinous head forward and back, as if nodding.

"Thanks." said Éromai as she opened her bedroom door. She quietly shut it behind her and took a few steps across the floor.

"Who were you talking to?" asked a voice, causing Éromai to nearly jump into the air. Before she realized it was only Evan.

"No one." She responded.

"Are you okay?" Evan asked, his wide gray eyes staring at her judgmentally. "You're acting weird."

"I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about." Said Éromai before she continued walking. She said goodbye to her father before heading outside into the hallway.

It was much quieter outside now that the next shift had started and all the stragglers had found where they were going. This made getting to the nearest white room much faster than it had been only a few minutes ago. And so the earlier journey was reversed as Éromai transmatted back to Section Beta, and walked to the Med Center.

Inside the Med Center stood a familiar woman with a white lab coat and distinctive Asian features that no other human on the fueling station had.

"Hi, Xiwang." Éromai called out to her "Did you need any help?"

Xiwang turned around to face her, and smiled a warm, friendly, and yet slightly sarcastic smile. "Yes, I was wondering if you could clean this odd array of items off the medical berth." She said, motioning to a battery pack, a pill jar, an IV sac, an opened bottle of DA, and an eye dropper left on top of a medical berth. Oops, Éromai had forgotten to put the stuff away earlier.

"Happy to. But how did you know I was the one who left this stuff behind?" asked Éromai as she started clearing the items away.

"Oh, just a feeling." Said Xiwang before she turned to a medicine cart. She was the station's only doctor, and had to prepare for possible patients. "And, it wouldn't have been the first time you used the medical supplies in your "experiments", as you call them."

Éromai laughed as she threw the IV sac into the waste disposal. "I commandeered those items in the name of science!" she joked. "There, that's the last of it." Éromai said as she put the eye dropper back on the cart. "See you later." She said before turning to leave.

"Oh, one more thing Éromai." Xiwang called from the other end of the Med Center. She stopped and turned around to face her. "What is it?"

"That black box, do you still have it?" she asked.

Éromai was a bit taken aback by the question and took a minute to find an answer to the question.

"Yes, it's in my bedroom where it always is. Why do you ask?"

Xiwang just smiled again, "No reason in particular, I was just wanted to know if you'd kept it." She said before returning to her work. Mind still reeling in bewilderment, Éromai left the Med Center and headed home.

As soon as she got back she got back to her room, she jumped on top of her bed and grabbed a small 7"x7"x7" black cube from her bedside table. That was the black box that Xiwang had referred to. On one of side of the cube was a sort of abstract design composed of hexagons and circles. The shapes were outlines formed by grooves dug into the cube; they'd been colored white somehow. Probably painted. Éromai didn't know if the pattern had any special significance, or if the cube had a practical purpose, but something about the shapes was oddly comforting to her. As a child, she had a nightly ritual of lying down in bed and tracing the mathematically precise lines with her finger over and over until she fell asleep.

"WHAT IS THAT OBJECT?" asked Limainen, who was hovering over by the bookshelf holding an ancient copy of "A Study in Scarlet" by Arthur Conan Doyle in his tentacles.

"I'm not entirely sure myself." Replied Éromai.

Limainen put the book back on the shelf and floated over to here. "I DO NOT UNDERSTAND."

"Well, I've had this cube thing for awhile, but I never really figured what it's for." Éromai explained.

"THIS ANSWER IS NOT SPECIFIC. HOW DID YOU COME TO POSSESS THIS OBJECT?"

"I've had it for as long as I can remember. Although that really isn't that long." She continued.

"THIS ANSWER IS ALSO INSUFFICIENT." Limainen pointed out.

"Right, to be honest the answer is in the form of an odd story. When I was eight years old, a group nurses happened to find me wandering about their hospital on New Earth. They asked me where my parents were, but couldn't remember. The nurses asked me what my parents looked like, but I couldn't remember that either. And I couldn't remember where I was from, what my surname was, or how I got there. I couldn't picture anything of it. I did remember a few things, like my first name and my age. And basic things like how to talk, walk, and eat. But other than at it was like my whole life had been erased." Éromai stopped to take a breath.

"The nurses tried to figure how I was left at the hospital and who I was, but they just couldn't figure it out. No one ever showed up looking for a missing child, so after a few weeks I was put in foster care, and then Audrey and Jeff adopted me. That whole time, the only clue as to where I came from was this weird cube." She held it up for him to see.

"I was carrying it the moment the nurses found me, the first moment I remember. But it didn't help, this cube didn't hold any useful information. It was just a bizarre unidentifiable object. But I've held on to this thing, whatever it is. Never really thinking about it a whole lot until today." Éromai paused.

"WHAT HAPPENED?" Limainen asked.

"Xiwang, a friend of mine, asked me about it. But I doubt she's ever seen it. Even if she had I can't believe that she would've remembered it. And she asked me if I still had it. Which is like asking if I've kept a particular scribble drawing from third grade all these years. It's just weird." Éromai put the cube down and leaned back against the wall.

"Maybe I'm just overreacting. Who cares if she asks about the stupid cube anyway?" said Éromai.

"YOU CARE." Answered Limainen, probably unaware of the term "rhetorical question".

"Not anymore." Éromai said nonchalantly. Though her gaze remained fixed on the cube, and a multitude of questions formulated in the back of her mind.


	4. Mental

It's important to understand that Rutans do not sleep, nor can they lose consciousness and "pass out" in the sense that humans do. Even when the fibers of their nervous system controlling movement are inactive, those responsible for the main senses are always primed in case of an attack or other state of emergency. This is essential for scouts who are often sent on solo missions to spy on the enemy for months at a time. If said scouts were to lose all awareness of their surroundings for any length of time they could completely jeopardize their mission, and end up captured or ambushed. Or both.

So just like any other normal, functioning Rutan, Limainen did not go to sleep that night. Instead he calmly floated in the corner of the bedroom, his bioluminescent body casting a dim green circle of light across the floor in an otherwise pitch black space, like a living nightlight. He wasn't quite sure why he was there. He should have been finding a negotiable spacecraft, leaving this alien settlement, and plotting a course straight home to Ruta III, but something compelled him to wait.

Limainen pondered over what it was. Of course staying for a short length of time would be fine, this would be an excellent opportunity to increase his people's knowledge of the different races that inhabited this region of the Mutter's Spiral. He could record his observations of their behavior and bring it home to be archived for use in strategic planning. That was how he justified it at least. Though really, this had to do with an odd brew of feelings floating around in his psyche. The Rutans, being the coldly logical and efficient bunch that they are, don't have words to describe these feelings. But in the English language, they would be labeled as curiosity, confusion, and responsibility. And underneath that, a feeling that even our language has difficulty describing, a feeling of precognition. It was as if he was waiting for something huge, something massively important to happen. Limainen didn't know exactly what he was waiting for, but he knew that it was absolutely imperative that he was there to witness this event. Whatever it may be.

On the other side of the room, Éromai was asleep in bed. Though, being the restless sleeper that she was, she kept tossing and turning underneath the fleecy white covers, her mind caught in the terror of some nightmarish vision. And on this particular night, in the land of her dreams, Éromai screamed.

Again she only screamed in the dream, but she screamed a bloodcurdling scream as she ran. The air in this dream world was full of smoke and cinder, the ground was a ruin of metal and buildings that appeared to have been blown apart. Debris was scattered across the ground and massive fires raged in every direction.

Éromai raced around the shattered foundations of the abandoned structures as fast as her feet could carry her. Her frenzied mind searched for any other living soul in the area, but there was none to be found. Her heart pounded in her chest as she continued running, dodging chunks of stone and metal that lay in her path. The atmosphere was eerily quiet, except for the crackle of the flames and the sound of Éromai's breathing. She ran for what seemed like an eternity, but the hellish ruins seemed to go on forever.

Finally, her dream legs gave out and Éromai tumbled to ground. She sat up painfully, coughing on the imaginary smoke. The girl took in her surroundings fearfully, before wondering for the first time where she was and how she'd gotten there. Before she could think it through, the sound of weapons fire rang through the air and caught her off guard.

Éromai flipped around toward the direction of the noise, a deep sense of dread settled within her. For a few moments nothing happened, and she continued to sit there in the rubble, too exhausted from her previous run to stand up again.

Suddenly, the sound of weapons came again, but this time it was much closer, the blasts echoed through the ruins. The noise stopped for a few seconds, then started up again, even closer now.

As the sounds got nearer, Éromai began to pick out voices among the blasts. She couldn't make out what they were saying, but they must have been yelling rather loudly to be heard over the firing of the weapons. Stupidly deciding to test her luck, Éromai called out, "Is anyone there?" she shouted hoarsely. There was no response.

"Anyone there!" Éromai shouted again, eyes wide with fear. Still no response, and the weapons fire did not cease.

"If you're there, please help me!" she screamed. She was practically in tears now.

A beam of light shot through the air and collided into a pile of rubble several yards away, blasting it apart with a mighty bang. Éromai ducked down as dust and sparks rained over the surrounding area. She wheezed as ash was sucked into her lungs before she sat back up again.

"Don't shoot! Please don't shoot! I'm here" she tried to scream despite the protest from her voice box.

Another beam of light exploded behind her, Éromai covered her head again as more rubble was sent flying through the air. Scarcely a second later another beam was fired, and then one after the other. All of them flinging dust and stone up into the air.

Between the violent explosions, Éromai tried to find the source of the blasts, but panic and concern ruined her focus. She tried to crawl out of the way, but her limbs felt as if they were made of lead, and refused to budge more than a few feet.

Unable to get to safety and alone as far as she knew, Éromai had choice but to cower down as the source of the blasts came nearer and nearer.

Then, all at once, the blasts stopped coming. The sound of weapons was abruptly cut off. Confused and terrified, Éromai inspected the surrounding area which was now a mess of broken stone and shrapnel. A fresher scent of smoke filled the air. Her ears struggled to function, but she recognized the same voices speaking again, they were so close now that she could almost make out what they were saying.

Shadows from the other side of a rubble pile slowly came into view. Éromai watched in silent horror as the black blobs glided across the ground.

"Please come out, I need help." She pleaded one last time.

The shadow's owner rounded the pile of rubble, its bronze armor gleaming in the firelight. Before Éromai even had time to think, the creature pointed its gun at her and fired.

"EXTERMINATE!"

Limainen watched in utter confusion as Éromai sat up with a start, gripping the bed sheets as tightly as she possibly could.

"WHAT IS HAPPENING?" he asked. "YOUR PULSE HAS INCREASED." Limainen stated upon sensing the increased electrical activity in her heart.

Éromai pushed her hair back behind her ears and took a moment to catch her breath. "I must have had a nightmare or something."

"WHAT IS A NIGHTMARE?" the Rutan asked her, completely ignorant to the concept.

"It's a bad dream." Éromai responded now that she had calmed down.

"WHAT IS A DREAM?"

"It's basically a type of hallucination that occurs during sleep." She said before lying down on the bed and staring up at the ceiling.

"DEFINE THE PARAMETERS OF "BAD." Said Limainen. He floated over to the bed and settled down on top of a pillow.

"A bad dream is usually a hallucination of something that scares you." Explained Éromai.

"I AM NOT AFRAID OF ANYTHING!" Limainen declared rather loudly.

"Limainen, be quiet or you'll wake someone up!" Éromai commanded in a whisper. "And when sometimes the word "you" can mean just anyone in general."

"UNDERSTOOD. THIS INFORMATION WILL PROVE MOST USEFUL IN FUTURE BATTLES."

"How?"

"THAT IS A RELEVANT QUESTION. I SHALL PROVIDE AN ANSWER AT A FUTURE TIME."

"You do that." Éromai sighed and shut her eyes. "I'll see you in the morning." She messed around with the blankets for a moment, and then slowly drifted back to sleep.

Once again, Limainen was left to wait in his silence. The minutes crept by, but he just stayed right where he was, sitting on top of that pillow to the immediate right of Éromai's head. He briefly considered returning to the primitive Earth text that he had been in the process of analyzing earlier, but he just didn't feel like it. Limainen turned his attention back to Éromai. She wasn't shifting around in bed the way she was earlier, so he assumed that she was no longer having a "nightmare".

After that, complete and utter boredom set in again. Well, it almost did. Had it not been for a faint humming noise that reverberated through the room. Limainen instantly levitated over to the source of the sound. He then experienced a tiny trace of surprise upon tracking it to the black cube on the bedside table. As Limainen moved closer, he noticed that the white pattern on the side of the cube was glowing. It wasn't very bright, but it was most definitely glowing.

The Rutan was unsure of what to do, so he floated back to the bed. "ÉROMAI." Limainen said, trying to wake the girl up but to no effect. "ÉROMAI." He repeated, wrapping a tentacle around her wrist and shaking it. "ÉROMAI! ÉROMAI! ÉROMAI!"

It finally woke her, and she shoved his slimy tentacle away and sat up. "What is it?" she demanded as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, and a familiar green jellyfish came into view. Limainen scooped up the black cube in one of his tentacles and held it out to Éromai.

Barely realizing that she was doing it, Éromai took the cube from him and stared at its pattern. "W-what…" she murmured to herself as she admired the way the white glow from the cube and the green glow from Limainen reflected off the cube's surface.

Limainen might have said something else at that point, but Éromai couldn't hear him. She couldn't hear anything. Couldn't feel anything. And all she could see was that glowing pattern on the cube. It seemed to get brighter and brighter, it felt like the light was burning right through her eyes and had seared itself into her mind. The pattern and this horrific, burning pain was all that existed. Even time seemed to slow down.

Then suddenly the pain was cut off, and a stream images flooded her conscience. They were images of people, symbols, creatures, and planets that Éromai didn't recognize. These strange things swamped her mind, taking up any space for rational thought. And because Éromai had no rational thought, she didn't even notice when everything faded to black.


End file.
